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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0975290622/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/103-4859868-5914262?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance An Utterly Fascinating Book., July 22, 2005 Peter Levenda poses a series of provocative questions in the Introduction to his utterly fascinating new book, Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft, the first volume in a series of three. "To what degree does mysticism (including occultism, religious organizations, and secret societies) influence politics? Can it be demonstrated that there is no real separation of church and state, despite most Americans' belief?" Can it be revealed that the "world's political leaders are motivated by (at times bizarre and outrageous) religious or spiritual convictions, thus threatening" the "very nature of the American way of life?"
In answering these questions, Levenda-who first got his feet thoroughly wet in esoteric matters with his earlier book, Unholy Alliance, a frightening portrait of obsession and involvement with the occult by Hitler and the Nazis-delved deeply into often overlooked and ignored historical files and archives. Indeed, his research spanned nearly three decades and multiple cities, states, and countries, an arduous undertaking, to say the least.
And in the process a strange thing happened to Levenda: He encountered what some writers refer to as the "Coincidence Goblin," a peculiar and recurring phenomena by which one experiences odd and disconcerting coincidences, which quickly lead into still odder coincidences until one gets the overwhelming and unshakeable sense that one has been ordained by some invisible higher power to write his or her book because he or she is part and parcel with it. Other writers brush off this bizarre occurrence as an unavoidable consequence of any serious research into subjects that concern the occult, or those sinister forces that always seen to be at play in worldly affairs.
Writers of authoritative volumes, old and new, that deal with the esoteric occasionally publicly remark about their disconcerting experiences related to occult-related research recalling very unusual happenings ranging form long sought-after books mysteriously falling off a library shelf before them to phantom-like visitors from the past or future who appear to share prized knowledge with them. Some writers have found it extremely difficult to cope with such occurrences and have been driven to the edges of sanity and beyond.
James Webb, a dashing and brilliant British historian, whose books and writings bear a strong resemblance to Levenda's, is but one sad example. Webb, who wrote two masterful volumes on the impact of the occult, or irrationalism as some would have it, on world affairs, killed himself not long after he completed a third book. According to those close to Webb, the once highly skeptical historian who scoffed at the occult did a complete reversal and concluded there were hidden and secret dimensions of reality that few ever glimpsed. Webb had visions of alternative worlds and said he had "seen molecules." Writer Gary Lachman reported in Fortean Times, "Webb tried to fit what was happening to him into some system, calling on Gnostic notions of `aeons' and Hindu accounts of `kalpas.'"
Webb's extraordinary experiences were uncannily close to those of Jacob Boehme, the great Protestant mystic who lived in the late 1500s. In what sounds very much like a modern UFO encounter, Boehme at the age of twenty-five witnessed "a dark metal dish in the sky" which reflected sunlight and whose brightness drove Boehme into a state of mind closely resembling that of an LSD or Ecstasy trip. He reported that he felt he was peering straight into the heart of all nature, of the very universe, and that he suddenly understood the world completely and was fully aware of its full meaning and purpose. Later Boehme was attacked from the pulpit of his church by a pastor who pointed him out and screamed, "Get thee behind me, Satan."
Astute readers, at this juncture, may also recall other questionable "suicides" by writers who researched secret matters, perhaps the timeliest ones being those of Danny Casalaro, Gary Webb, Mark Lombardi, and J.T. Hatfield, four dissimilar journalists who took headlong and fatal plunges into the netherworld of the CIA and drug trafficking, and other related matters. Readers may also recall the bizarre experiences of speculative fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Dick, before his untimely death at the age of 54, had amazing and mystical encounters that defy explanation.
Ioan Couliano, an acclaimed religious scholar who specialized in Gnostic studies, observed that Dick's books were rooted in Jewish-Christian apocalyptic literature. (Couliano's murder in 1991 remains unsolved to this day.)
Then, of course, there is Colin Wilson, perhaps the very first writer to really take serious note of the oddities that often plague individuals who dabble in the occult. Wilson, often belittled by critics, is in my view one of the truly great original thinkers of our time.
Levenda's journey into the realm of sinister forces begins with a detailed examination of very early (B.C. to be exact) and early American history. He meticulously reveals fascinating details about the mysterious Los Lunas stone of New Mexico, the perplexing mounds and Mound Builders of early America, and infamous early-American religious fanatic Cotton Mather, who "insisted that the Devil himself had brought the Indians to America, since there was no mention of their race in the Bible." (I must be completely honest here and note that Cotton Mather wrote a book about Hannah Dustin, a distant relative of my mother.)
The remainder of Levenda's first volume is devoted to eight additional enthralling chapters that cover a tremendous amount of esoteric terrain. Most fascinating to me is his treatment of the CIA's Bluebird Project, an initial Cold War behavior modification program that quickly evolved into the notorious (and still largely unexplored) MKULTRA projects. Levenda does an excellent job in revealing the little known role of man-of-mystery Dr. Andrija Puharich in the CIA's and Army's mind control experiments, as well as his deep involvement with a group called "the Nine" that claimed to be in touch with cosmic entities that controlled the world's fate. Puharich worked at Edgewood Arsenal and Camp Detrick at the same time as murdered Army biochemist Frank R. Olson, who on at least one occasion scoffed at Puharich's beliefs and surreptitious work for the U.S. Army and Pentagon officials. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, past CIA Technical Services Section director, is on record stating Puharich was "an instrumental and early advocate" of the powers of hallucinogenic drugs, including LSD and various exotic mushrooms. (Puharich's death also remains somewhat a mystery to the present day.)
Levenda's coverage Jim Jones's Jonestown incident (claimed to be a CIA mind control experiment by some) and the doings of Charles Manson (a possible MKULTRA subject) are especially frightening and leaves one anxiously wondering what is still to come in volumes two and three of Sinister Forces. With Manson's story we begin to feel uncomfortably close to that inexplicable force, that primordial glue, that draws together seeming unrelated events and people into synocratic happenings. To this extent we also are able to begin to appreciate Levenda's statement that his book "is about evil. Evil ordinary and extraordinary." And about "the sinister forces that rule the world of our dreams, our nightmares, and our sober, trembling, waking reality."
A nice benefit of Levenda's book, as former investigative journalist James Hougan points out in his excellent Forward, is that you can open it to almost any page, begin reading, and find yourself an hour later still reading, mesmerized, asking yourself over and over, "Can this really be?"
All in all, if you are the type of person who intuitively understands that there is far more to history than meets the eye, and that history is mere play dough in the hands of its shapers, this book will more than stimulate your notions.
A few years ago, the primary character in Henry Bromell's wonderful novel, Little America, said, "I'm interested in what happens inside history, what history hides, what gets left out and what is forgotten." With Sinister Forces Peter Levenda does a masterful job of revealing what history has hidden away from us. www.sinisterforces.info
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